MUMBAI: A day after Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut declared that MVA partners Congress, NCP (SP) and UBT Sena would contest 85 seats each, a top Congress politician said that his party would contest 104 seats, while UBT Sena and NCP-SP would fight from 94 and 84 seats respectively.
“The number of seats is not important, allotment of seats will be decided on merit and winnability.In my opinion, Congress will contest 100 to 104 seats, of which 43 will be from the Vidarbha region,” said leader of opposition Vijay Wadettiwar.
Referring to Raut’s 85-85-85 formula, Wadettiwar said of the remaining 33 seats, two each would be allotted to PWP and SP, and three to CPM.
Of the 26 seats that would remain after that, 18 will be allotted to Congress and 8 to UBT Sena. Congress politician said the 85-85-85 formula was declared in a hurry on Wednesday as several candidates were insisting on an official list so they would be able to file their nomination papers on Thursday, which was considered an auspicious day. Accordingly, several prominent candidates, including Aaditya Thackeray, state NCP (NCP) president Jayant Patil and former minister Harshawardhan Patil of NCP (SP) filed their nomination forms.
Congress politician blamed the AICC leadership for inept handling of the political situation in the state, which has led to delay in finalising the seat-sharing formula. “We had expected that AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge will meet both Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray, but no such steps were taken. We feel that after the humiliating defeat in Haryana, Congress has not taken Maharashtra assembly elections seriously, and lessons have not been learnt,” he added.